1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing system in which a plurality of printing apparatuses are connected via a network, a printing apparatus, and a print control method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Along with wide distribution of network environments, printer apparatuses and multi-function apparatuses (MFPs, or multi-function peripherals) that are capable of connecting to networks have emerged, and now shared use of multiple MFPs by multiple users has become common in office environments. In such environments, an MFP is often installed in a location that is remote from most of the users. Accordingly, a situation can occur in which a job is not executed or the execution of a job is delayed due to problems that have occurred in the MFP, heavy job traffic, etc. If such a situation occurs, the user becomes aware of the fact that a job has not been executed only after he/she goes to the location where the MFP is installed to pick up a printed copy, only to find that the printed copy has not been outputted.
In order to solve such a problem, a proposal has been made in which an instruction is given directly to the apparatus holding a job unexecuted due to the occurrence of delay, or the unexecuted job is automatically transferred to another apparatus capable of printing in order to print the job.
Also, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-proposes a technique for executing printing in a convenient manner by transferring a job among apparatuses when plural shared apparatuses are present.
In order to cause an unexecuted job transferred from a first apparatus in which a processing delay has occurred to a second apparatus to be printed by the second apparatus, it is necessary to transfer the data of the job from the first apparatus to the second apparatus. For example, to transfer large-size job data including image data, the job data must be transferred via a network, and written into the hard disk of the apparatus to which the job data is transferred, which requires a large amount of time. As such, various problems occur if the transfer of the job data starts at the timing at which the user has provided the instruction to transfer the job.
FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a problem encountered in the conventional technology as described above.
In this example, a print job has been issued from Terminal to Device A, but Device A is in an error state, namely, is out of toner. As such, Device A transfers the print job to Device B and instructs Device B to print the job. However, Device B is in a state in which it is unable to perform printing due to paper jam error. Accordingly, Device B further transfers the print job to Device C to cause Device C to print the job.
When a print job is transferred from Device A to Device B, and then further transferred to Device C, Device A attempts to instruct Device B to transfer the print job to Device C, but a case may occur in which the transfer of the job data from Device A to Device B has not yet finished at that point in time. If such a case occurs, it is necessary for the user to wait for the transfer of the job data from Device A to Device B to finish, and he/she can provide an instruction to transfer the job data from Device B to Device C only thereafter. The transfer of the job data to Device C starts only after the instruction is provided by the user. In this case, the transfer of the job data from Device A to Device B is unnecessary, and the time required for the transfer not only causes a reduction in the throughput, but can also result in an increase in network traffic.
FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating another problem encountered in conventional technology.
In FIG. 6, plural jobs, or Jobs 0 to 5, have been issued from Terminal to Device A, but Device A is unable to perform printing because it is in an error state, namely, is in out of toner. In this case, Device A transfers Jobs 0 to 4, which are to be printed in color, to Device B, which is capable of color printing, and Job 5 to Device C, which is capable of monochrome printing. However, the fifth job, or Job 5, is not transferred until the transfer of Jobs 0 to 4 is completed. Accordingly, Device C remains in a standby state during the transfer of Jobs 0 to 4. The time spent in such a standby state reduces the throughput until all of the jobs finish printing.